Saturday, October 01, 2011

'On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of The Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer. A question will be asked. A question that must never, ever, be answered.'

Were you watching the Doctor Who series finale, dear blog reader? Or were you watching Tess Daly's bloke with the long-face on the other side? I mean, I don't mind really. They're both valid lifestyle choices in their own way. Personally, I made my lifestyle choice years ago. Many years ago. One cold dark Saturday afternoon in February 1968 when I watched some mutant seaweed menacing poor little Debbie Watling through a ventilator grill and decided that me being in a permanent state of bowel-shattering terror was, broadly speaking, a healthy way to go through life. In the years since then, I've had periods - not infrequently either - of wondering whether I should give up this daft little show with its space monster fixations and regular genre cliches. Whether it was time to put aside such childish things and, you know, grow the fuck up. But, as a wise man once said, 'what's the point of being grown up if you can't act like a child every now and then?' Plus, what else am I going to do with my time if I do stop watching? Go out, get a skinful of lager and cause mayhem in the High Street? You don't want that, dear blog reader. Society doesn't want that. To be honest, I think society is probably better off with me where I am, in my gaff, with a nice chicken omelette and a rather cheeky little glass of chilled Merlot, watching Doctor Who. 'Everything,' as Annie Lambert says in Picnic At Hanging Rock, 'begins and ends at exactly the right time. And place.' Damn straight it does.

The Wedding of River Song. As soon as the title of the thirteenth episode of this year's series of the popular family SF drama was announced, it was inevitable that there would be feverish speculation among fandom (from the relatively 'normal' parts all the way to The Special People) as to what that was all about. With the Doctor aware that only his death can keep the universe safe, we return to where the season began, Lake Silencio as the Time Lord prepares for a, quite literal, date with destiny at the appointed time. But, of course, it's not that simple. Old friends return - a collection of Ponds in Melody, Amy and Rory - along with Churchill, Charles Dickens and Dorium Maldovar. But enemies from The Doctor's past also feature. It's a Doctor Who series finale, after all, so what did you expect? There's a bit of Dalek action and The Silence and Madam Kovarian and her eyepatches of bad-naughtiness, they're back with a-vengeance for The Final Countdown.

'We all have to die, Doctor, but you more than most. You do see that, don't you?' Of course, this being a Doctor Who series finale, it's yet another one of those 'everything but the kitchen sink and the only reason that's not here is because it wouldn't fit in the TARDIS' conceits of the kind we've grown used to over the last six years. Some people hate them. Hate them. And they're not shy of saying so, either. Loudly, to anyone that will listen (and, frankly, anyone that won't) on an Internet Forum near you. Me? I rather like them. Maybe I'm just easily pleased. It's possible. Maybe my critical faculties have become so dulled with a constant diet of the trash which manifests itself as 'television entertainment' these days that I can't see beyond Steven Moffat's 'empty crowd-pleasing gestures' and 'crass fanwank'? Maybe. Or, maybe I just like the damn thing. Maybe a part of me is still that five year old in Newcastle in 1968 being thrilled by Fury From The Deep and is happy that we're in 2011 and I'm nearing fifty and Doctor Who is still a living, breathing, popular and successful entity. Anything's possible. So, anyway, we start in a London in what it, clearly, an alternate time-stream. We know this, because of a really clever little sequence which references the War of the Roses and the Holy Roman Empire and throws in a splash Dickens (previewing A Christmas Carol on BBC Breakfast!), Churchill, pterodactyls, Silurians and all sorts of others bits and pieces of series lore as window dressing to a superb pre-title sequence. It's great stuff. But, there's a problem. 'It's always two minutes past five in the afternoon.' Yes, Winston, I have days like that as well. The bonus, from his point of view I guess, is that he doesn't get chucked out of office by the British people in favour of Clement Attlee and co for five years because he was against the introduction of the National Health Service. So, what does he do? In best Frankie Howerd-style(e) he sends for the Soothsayer. Titter ye not, dear blog reader. Ney, ney and thrice ney. And, here endeth The Prologue. 'The clocks never tick. Something is happening to time.' Just as in last year's finale, The Big Bang, some bold-to-the-point-of-being-bloody-outrageous intertextual conceits effectively allow for the getting out of an apparently un-get-out-of-able corner and back into the swell of the action. 'What happened to time?' asks Churchill. 'A woman,' replies The Doctor. Ah, isn't that always the way? Chechez la femme, you know? So, inevitably, The Doctor does. And, he finds two of them. Mother and daughter. On the way, he plays chess with a curiously made-up Mark Gatiss (why the long-face, Mark?), pulls a Dalek's sucker off (ooo, nasty!), takes part in a terrific space cantina scene with The Teselecta and boasts that he could 'invent a new colour, save the Dodo or join The Beatles.' Good point. They could've used a 'champion of law and order' at times in place of the alcoholic wife-beating Scouse junkie, I reckon. His presence would've improved the mood of the Get Back sessions immeasurably. His speech to the Dalek-in-distress is wonderful - the stuff of quotation in The Generations. 'Just when you thought the day couldn't get any worse, you looked up and saw the face of The Devil himself.'

Death imagery peppers the episode - notably in the scene in the headless monk's catacombs. The chess, the living skulls, et cetera. But The Doctor must keep coming back to his bottom line. 'Silence will fall when The Question is asked.' It gnaws at him like a rat in his guts. 'They want me dead,' he says, horrified, to Dorium. 'No, not really,' comes the reply from his blue-faced, bodiless friend. 'They just don't want you to remain alive.' 'That's okay then,' notes The Doctor, 'I was a bit worried there for a moment.' 'You're a man with a long and dangerous past. But your future is infinitely more terrifying.' It's a subtle difference, perhaps, but it's key to the way in which the episode develops thereafter and provides a get-out clause for the production from the finality of a pre-arranged date with destiny. This is, possibly, my favourite part of the episode. A necessary quiet before the oncoming storm complete with some really touching continuity references - to Queen Liz, to Rose, to Jack and, especially, the phone call about The Brigadier's death. You know, people wonder why this programme continues to have the hold that it does over many of those who once fell deeply in love with it as children. Possibly it's because it takes the time to include a scene in which a character who last appeared in the drama twenty two years ago is quietly, but beautifully, mourned. Like the famous 'Doctor's Reward' sequences from The End of Time these are moments which transcend sentimentality and mawkishness and articulate, figuratively and emotionally, the vulnerability of mortality even in the Telefantasy arena of the Doctor Who universe. Along with the subsequent layering on of redemption and forgiveness as concepts to be played with, this is Doctor Who doing the 'Just today, everybody lives!' thing again. From that Picnic at Hanging Rock quote, to George Harrison's wisest ever lyrics ('it's not always gonna be this grey/all thing must pass away') to simple banal home-spun philosophy - 'treat every day as your last ... and then one day, you'll be right' - we have a piece of TV drama which acknowledges the finality of death. But one which, in a kind of roundabout way, looks forward to it and yet still loves the sheer cheek of the idea of cheating it out of its inevitable victory. For just another day. Or maybe two. 'If it's time to go, remember what you're leaving.'

A still point in time, Dorium calls Lake Silencio. The problem is that River Song manages to fatally compromise reality: 'Everything happened at once and it won't stop.' Fixed points 'can be rewritten,' River argues at one point. And, ultimately, she's correct, even if she herself is a bit non-plussed as to, exactly, how that's achieved. 'That's you from the future serving time for a murder you probably didn't even remember. My murder.' And then he turned around and they were all wearing eyepatches. Ha, and indeed, ha. 'You look rubbish' Amelia Pond tells The Doctor in the plushness of her office-on-a-train (which, yes, I'm with The Doctor on that score. It is really cool. I want an office on a train, dear blog reader. Do you think that could be arranged?) Having explained how there can be two different versions of the same event - it's all about perspective, of course - we see how Amy, in another lifetime, has become a quasi-Doctor herself. 'River Song didn't get it all from you, Sweetie,' she tells Madam Kovarian bitchily before committing an act that she will only undertake directly because The Doctor has other - bigger - things on his mind. Later, she will feel awful about this. Rightly. About taking a life even though, as her daughter wisely assures her, it was 'in an aborted timeline in a world that never was.' That's the inherent decency which The Doctor instils in his companions. As he says earlier, to Winston, 'Amy and Rory. The Last Centurion and The Girl Who Waited. However dark it got I'd turn around and there they'd be. If it's time to go, remember what you're leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best.'

'Time catches up with us all, Doctor.' 'Well it has never laid a glove on me.' We also see that Rory's heroics aren't confined to one world either. The Silence acknowledge the humour of the 'they keep killing Rory' shenanigans and prepare do the deed for a final time. And he's prepared to self-sacrifice himself for a woman he adores but barely knows (but, feels that, perhaps, he should know better). That she saves him is key to why the two of them belong together. The Doctor tries a bit of matchmaking. 'She would like to go out with you. For texting and scones.' Kovorian asks The Doctor 'why didn't you just die?' as it would, undoubtedly, have saved a lot of people an awful lot of trouble. 'I did my best, dear,' he confesses. 'I turned up! You just can't get the psychopaths these days.' Indeed he did. He, she, he and, indeed, she, to the appointed place. In the case of the second she, twice. And that's where it all starts to go pear-shaped for causality. Because, poor old River, despite a lifetime of brainwashing and a big nasty suit overriding her complex emotions, just can't do the dirty deed. Good on her. Even if it will destroy the universe. 'Every explosion has an epicentre,' The Doctor tells her. 'And you are forgiven. Always and completely forgiven.' There's a needle stuck on a record. Or a download if you prefer, Winston. 'What's wrong with you?' 'I'm still alive!' Thence, we get to 'special-agent-boss-lady' Amelia and her chaps with Big Guns, and Captain Williams, 'the best of the best.' Which is all jolly nice and rattles along at a fair old lick. The dialogue in this section is great. 'What does it matter, can't we just stay like this?'

The climax is, perhaps inevitably, something of a curve-ball. As with several previous episodes this year, it's about emotional complexity and searching for necessary loopholes in universal constants. 'That man. Always one step ahead of everyone. Always a plan.' The Doctor and River must fool the universe (well, most of them anyway). 'I just told you my name,' appears to be another, stunning bit of continuity linking all the way back to Silence in the Library but, actually it's yet another example of this season's glorious truism, 'The Doctor lies.' And so does River, it would seem. 'Am I the woman that marries you, or the woman that murders you?' Both. Neither. Simultaneously. 'You may kiss the bride.' 'I'll make it a good one.' 'You better!' It's time for The Doctor to learn an important truism himself. 'The sky is full of a million-million voices saying "yes, of course, we'll help." You've touched so many lives, saved so many people did you really think that when your time came you'd have to do more than ask? You've decided that the universe is better off without you but the universe doesn't agree.' He feigns embarrassment, of course, at having his worst moments broadcast to the entire universe. But, actually, you sense he's proud, really. Proud that River has proved to him that he matters.

So time rights itself. In - again - a roundabout way. And River keeps a secret. A necessary secret. From all but her parents. Well, it's probably important that the in-laws know the truth.

'Father, dear, I think mummy might need another drink,' notes River. The look on Rory's face suggests daddy's going to be joining her. I love the little dance Amy and River do when River reveals that The Doctor is still alive. Wine, family and thoughts of good friends, alive and well and far away. Great. Meanwhile in a galaxy far, far away, The Doctor returns Dorium's head to his rightful resting place. 'So you're going to do this? Let them all think you're dead?' 'It's the only way, let them all forget me,' The Doctor confesses. 'I got too big, Dorium, too noisy. Time to step back into the shadows.' One gets the impression that where Doctor Who goes next - literally and metaphorically - will be to a very different place. A return to mystery and enigma. A return to a Doctor on the run. Not from the Time Lords, this time, or the Daleks, or The Cybermen or The Silence but from a simple, ordinary, almost banal question. One that Ian Chesterton asked Barbara Wright forty eight years ago give or take a few weeks in a squalid junkyard in South London and one which he never received an answer to. 'Who is he? Doctor who?'

Is it nearly Christmas yet?

For today's Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day after a piece of drama like that, I think we need a bedtime story from Rockpile to calm us down. Sing, David!

As an original series fan I fine the writing of this new show lately to be very silly.

What was once a plausable, watchable series is turning into a send up of the original, which was well written with the odd turkey episode and was first up a well written drama with humour when appropriate.

It had great writers like Robert Holmes - The Talons of Weng Chiang an example. New series writers take heed.

... About an alien with two hearts and the ability to physically regenerate who travels through time and space in a machine disguised as a 1950s police telephone box? I think you need to use the dictionary and find out what the word 'plausible' actually means.

And, you know, how to spell it.

I've heard some risible fandom crap in my time but stuff like this ... is pretty much standard. And very boring.

A Necessary Disclaimer

This blog contains occasional outbursts of adult language (about what a right shite state of affairs occur in the world today, mostly) and some (very minor) adult themes every now and then. So, if you're not seventeen years old yet, dear blog reader, then please do yer actual Keith Telly Topping a favour. Naff off and come back when you're a bit older. Thanks muchly.

Disclaimer (A Slight Return)

All of the opinions expressed within this blog - unless specifically indicated otherwise - are Keith Telly Topping's own. They should not, in any way, be thought of as reflecting (either collectively or individually) the views of any of the various media organisations, broadcasters, publishing companies or periodicals for which he has freelanced in the past, or may be employed by in the future. Or, indeed, anyone else other than yer actual Keith Telly Topping his very self.

My opinions, my political and spiritual beliefs, the choice of which TV shows I like and dislike, which newspapers and books I chose to read and, indeed, which football team I have the misfortune to support are my own and expression of them is my right within a free and democratic society. (Which, for all of Britain's faults in other areas in 2016, it just about still is.) If you disagree with any of the opinions expressed here, then please feel free to start your own blog and say whatever is on your mind to your own dear blog readers. That is, after all, what blogs are for.

This blogger encourages everyone to use those freedoms - which many brave men and women have struggled, suffered and died to attain and then maintain over the years - to express your opinions upon whatever subjects you desire and whenever you see fit in a public forum. Within - of course - the boundaries of the law as it currently stands.

Please remember there are, sadly, many parts of the world where citizens do not have similar liberties and who would probably love the opportunity to enjoy some of the freedoms that we in the West, all too often it would seem, take for granted.

Or, To Put It Another Way ...

This PARTICULARLY applies to the contents of this blog.

It's Not Where You're From, It's Where You're At!

A Brief Word Of Necessary Explanation

Copyright - An Important Notice

During 2015, this blogger received three separate "take-down" notices from blogger.com regarding individual pages of From The North relating to - alleged - copyright material posted on this blog. All of which were compiled with despite an extremely unhelpful attitude from those making the requests in telling Keith Telly Topping exactly *what* they - or, specifically, a third party - wished him to remove from the page(s) in question. Therefore, please note, From The North is a non-profit making blog compiled by Keith Telly Topping in his spare time. Almost all of the images used on this blog to illustrate a particular story come via Google Images. No attempt is made to infringe on anyones copyright - and the same goes to any links provided to You Tube. I am perfectly happy to remove any links or images from any particular page which are copyrighted (within reason, of course), but it would greatly help if I knew which one (or ones) are at issue. If you are a copyright holder and you believe that something has been posted on From The North which shouldn't be, please contact this blogger directly via the comments section.

All Are Welcome, Yes Indeed

Who He Is & How He Came To Be

A full-time survivor, dandy highwayman, bon vivant, self-unemployed author, journalist and broadcaster Keith Telly Topping's bibliography includes over forty books on mainly pop culture subjects. He was the co-editor of two editions of The Guinness Book of Classic British TV and has written or co-written volumes on television series as diverse as The X-Files, Star Trek, The Avengers, 24, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Charmed, The Sweeney and Stargate SG-1 as well as music, film and literary critique. He authored four Doctor Who novels (including the award-winning The Hollow Men, with Martin Day) and a novella. His work includes two editions of the acclaimed The West Wing programme guide Inside Bartlet’s White House, A Vault Of Horror: A Book Of Eighty Great (and not-so-great) British Horror Movies, Do You Want To Know A Secret?: A Fab Anthology of Beatles Facts and Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide. He was a regular contributor to numerous TV and genre magazines and was a former Contributing Editor to DreamWatch. He is widely considered to be one of Britain's foremost experts on the bewildering complexities of US network television. No, he hasn't the faintest idea why either.

Notoriously suave, articulate and a right wow with the ladies (allegedly), Keith Telly Topping was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne on the very day that his beloved (though even then unsellable) United lost 3-2 at home to Northampton Town. Things haven't improved much since. He was the presenter of the monthly The Book Club (2006-08) and the daily Keith Telly Topping & His Top TV Tips preview slot on BBC Newcastle (2005-2012). He contributed to the BBC television series I ♥ the 70s, Call The Cops and The Perfect Detective and has also written for Sounds, the Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times Culture Supplement, Radio Times, TV Zone, The Doctor Who Magazine and many other publications and periodicals.

Keith Telly Topping writes, and occasionally performs stand-up, and has written radio comedy, co-wrote the stage musical Monopolise! (performed at the 2011 Edinburgh Comedy Festival with Alfie Joey and Mark Deeks) and two TV pilots both of which are, currently, stuck in 'Development Hell.' A failed pop star at the age of fourteen as bass guitarist in (the never-legendary) Slime, Keith Telly Topping lives, works and occasionally sleeps on Tyneside. His interests include foreign travel, listening to bowel-shatteringly loud pop music, socialising with friends, eating in nice Chinese restaurants, watching football and cricket, reading, tacky British horror movies of the 1960s and 70s, military, political and social history and lots of other malarkey and shenanigans too numerous to list.

Keith Telly Topping still dines out on the tale of how he and three friends once - accidentally - stalked George Harrison down the entire length of Oxford Street. True story.

yer actual keith telly topping

THIS Is What You're Up Against

Nobody's Perfect

咖喱米飯和晶片

The Internet Is Responsible For All Of The EVIL In The World. Apparently

Has Anyone Else Noticed That The World Appears To Have Gone To Shit Since David Bowie Died?

The two things are, surely, connected?

Still, Life Has Its Upside

Sometimes. But, only if you think hard enough about it.

Docotr Who Fandom Explained

Available Again - Something This Blogger Has Written Which He's Actually Quite Proud Of

Keith Topping & Martin Day's award-winning 1998 Doctor Who novel The Hollow Men has been reissued by Random House as a kindle download. It can be yours, dear blog reader, for just three English pounds and thirty two pence from Amazon.

Available Again - Something Else This Blogger Co-Wrote Which He's Actually Extremely Proud Of

Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping's award-winning Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide is now available in a kindle edition

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http://worldcuptrivia.blogspot.com/

Monopolise!

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Comments

Comments are always welcome - spam is most definitely not. However, no comments will be accepted from that well known regular attempted contributor 'Anonymous'. If you've got something which you think is worth saying, then I'm sure we'd all like to read it. But, at least have the good grace to put your name to it.

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mission statement - part I

From The North is actively committed to working for a brighter future for Great Britain through the promotion of junk culture telly and loud pop music among young people.

mission statement - part II

This is, of course, an equal-opportunities blog. We treat them ALL with the same level of complete and utter contempt that they so richly deserve. As Billy Connolly once said, 'don't vote for them, it only encourages them.'

mission statement - part III

It's a truism but, in life, one tends never to fully appreciate the good things that one has until they are gone. Just a thought

appreciate what you've got while you've got it

The BBC is, of course, a British institution and national treasure. It is also - much more importantly - a World Class broadcaster with a global reputation for journalistic honesty, integrity, balance, innovation, creativity and quality. Ironically the only places in the world where it isn't highly regarded are in knobcheese fascist dictatorships like Iran and China and in its own backyard where scum politicians and lice newspapers with an agenda use it as their own personal punch-bag. This is WRONG. This blog supports the BBC and believes that it is high time the people of this country - to whom, after all, the BBC *belongs* - stand up for themselves and remind such crass, ignorant bullies that the BBC is better than all of them put together

reasons to be alive in 2017

No. 1: The third Peter Capaldi series of Doctor Who

can't find anything worth watching on TV tonight?

Then why not open your Complete West Wing DVD box-set and watch a couple of episodes in bed with a box of Maltesers®™ and a nice hot cup of milky cocoa? The world will, yer Keith Telly Topping respectfully suggests, look a whole hell of a lot better after a trip inside Bartlet's White House

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Militant Agnosticism Or Understandable Indecisiveness?

I would really appreciate it if any postings made by myself on this blog are not reposted elsewhere without my permission. Which will almost certainly be given but I'd like you to at least do me the courtesy of asking first. Thank you for your kind consideration in this regard.